It is known to provide a controller for a patient support, such as a hospital bed, to enable a user to perform a variety of functions including adjusting the bed configuration by, for example, raising or lowering the bed, tilting the bed, or raising, lowering, and/or tilting a portion of the bed relative to another portion of the bed. Conventional controllers are either built into the siderail of the bed, or are provided as pendants that may be stored in the siderail and removed from the siderail for use. Built in controllers generally provide an input surface having individual control switches for the various adjustment functions. The input surface is typically planar with a side surface of the siderail, facing the patient in the bed. This is a very poor ergonomic position. The severe angle between the patient and the controller makes the control switches on the input surface very difficult to see. Also, such controllers are very difficult to use since the patient must either reach across his or her body to access a controller built into one siderail, or bend his or her arm and wrist in an awkward angle to access a controller built into the other siderail.
Pendant controllers also have many disadvantages. While pendant controllers may be handheld, avoiding some of the ergonomic problems of built in controllers, pendant controllers may be stolen, lost, misplaced, dropped to the floor or otherwise rendered difficult or impossible to access by a patient in the bed. Moreover, pendant controllers may be damaged when dropped. Even pendant controllers that are tethered to the bed by a tether or an electrical cord may be located outside of an area that is conveniently accessible by the patient. For example, a tethered pendant controller may be located within the bed coverings or over the side of the bed, dangling from the tether. Indeed, tethered pendant controllers are further disadvantageous in that they present a choking hazard. Moreover, tethered pendant controllers are relatively difficult to clean, thereby presenting other health hazards.
In one embodiment of the device described herein, a controller for a bed is connected to a siderail of the bed so that movement of the siderail to a raised position causes movement of the controller to a deployed position which is ergonomically accessible by the patient. Additionally, movement of the siderail to a lowered position causes movement of the controller to a stored position.
In another embodiment, there is provided a controller for use with a patient support including a siderail having a lowered position and a raised position. The controller includes a housing having at least one selector to select a controllable function and a linkage mechanism coupled to the housing. The linkage mechanism is adapted to respond to movement of the siderail from the lowered position to the raised position and to correspondingly move the housing from a stored position to a deployed position spaced from the stored position.
In a further embodiment, there is provided a control device for use with a patient support including a siderail having at least two positions. The control device includes a linkage mechanism, having a first position associated with one of the at least two positions and a second position associated with another of the at least two positions. A housing is coupled to the linkage mechanism wherein the first position of the linkage mechanism locates the housing at a storage position and the second position of the linkage mechanism locates the housing at a deployed position. A release enables movement of the controller from the deployed position to the storage position when the siderail is in one of the at least two positions.
These and other features of the device will become apparent and be further understood upon reading the detailed description provided below with reference to the following drawings.